So, you’ve set you mind on Argentinian Spanish. You’ve been taken by this peculiar mix of Spanish and Italian, and now you would like to understand exactly how to make your Spanish more Argentinian.

Is that you?

Well, my dear Watson, the answer is very simple: listen (and if possible speak) to natives as much as possible. Get obsessed, imitate and repeat, even when you are not totally sure what people are saying. Find pleasure in mirroring the intonation, stress and rhythm of natural speech.

I’m sorry! Contrary to the expectations that might have brought you here, there is no recipe for authentically speaking Argentinian Spanish other than this.

Well, hold on, as we’ve covered in other posts, there are a few things you can apply right now:

Three quick tweaks can help you sound more Argentinian instantly:

Turning all /y/ and /ll/ into sounds of ‘sh’.

Read these words out loud and concentrate on getting an even /sh/ sound for all of them:

• ya – allá – llamar – yang – callar – pantalla – playa – silla – cebolla – cosquillas
• yen – ayer – calle – Ayelén – llegar
• ying
• yo – yoga – yogur – tuyo – uruguayo – coyote – amarillo – Nueva York – mayonesa
• lluvia – yuyo – Yucatán

Nonsensical poetry you can apply to your practice:

• El yogur uruguayo me hace cosquillas.
• Hay mucha mayonesa en las calles de Nueva York.
• Ayelen, la uruguaya, hace clases de yoga con lluvia.
• Ayer llegué a Yucatán y un coyoté huyó.
• El amarillo es tuyo? Está en la silla
• Ya no hay sillas. Hay que pelar cebollas.

Conjugate verbs in the present using VOS forms

All you have to do is drop -AR, -ER, -IR from the infinitive form and add -ÁS, -ÉS, -ÍS

• ¿Cómo te llamás?
• ¿Cuántos años tenés?
• ¿Dónde vivís?

In the present, VOS forms have no irregular forms, except for the verb SER (which turns into SOS, not ERES).

• ¿De dónde sos?

Come HERE to learn more about VOS forms

Use the right words

You’ll want to adjust your vocabulary. Remember that there are NOUNS, VERBS and ADJECTIVES that we use in Argentina and not everywhere else.

Well, this is the furthest we can go without actual interaction, but you can find some useful material in the resources section.

And also, we can team up and meet for a lesson!

Happy Spanish learning,

You might also want to read these articles:

• How to go about with reading in Spanish
  In this post I want to make you want to read, even if you feel you’re not ready for it.
• Implied subject
  This post deals with a little tweak that can make your Spanish sound more natural —dropping the subject pronoun.
• Start Shadowing now!
  Today I’ll get you started with shadowing, so your Spanish speaking skills go through the roof.
• Argentinian Provinces and Demonyms
  This is a short geography lesson, where you’ll learn the name of the provinces and demonyms for each of them.
• Let’s in Spanish
  In this post we take a minute to see how Let’s phrases translate into Spanish.
• Papelón
  In this post we pay attention to a word that you can come across very frequently when referring to embarassing events.